March 2, 2012

I've noticed that the search-this-blog box in the upper right corner of this page works much better than it used to. You get search results going all the way back to the beginning, ordered by relevance (or date, if you prefer), and I tested it with the word "coffee" — and that came up first.

The search box shows up in the upper left hand corner with me - typo or different formats for different users?

Also, the function to forward comments for a particular post to my gmail account is no longer available when I make a make a comment. Has that function been intentionally deleted? I found it to be a useful function.

Coffee effectively came to Europe with the Siege of Vienna in 1683 when the Ottoman Turks made their last attempt to conquer Europe. Somehow all that Islamic grievance stuff about the crusades forgets the Muslims were killing Europeans in Europe nearly 500 years later...

Anyway Europe (or at least Vienna) was saved by Jan (John) III Sobieski and the Polish Winged Hussars in the largest Cavalry charge in history (38,000 Europeans)

The Turks were routed, leaving behind these smelly bags of brown beans that someone (who built the first Vienna coffee house) recognized as coffee. The rest is history

PS: another legend has it that the Crossiant (crescent) was invented during the previous Turk siege of Vienna in 1529.

I searched my own name, because what could possibly be more important to anybody here? I found that I was front paged a few times that I never even knew about.

That reminded me to mention what is a strange dynamic about blogs: You come in, you comment some and then life pulls you away, but people rarely want to say they are leaving. It seems cowardly or rude to just walk away in mid-conversation/argument, then you come back hours later or never. The conversation continues without one of the main principles involved. It's like your lover excuses themselves in the middle of passion to use the restroom and you don't see them again till the next day, and you both act like nothing happened.

I apologize for leaving you all wanting, excited, swollen and unsatisfied, but shit happens.

The Coffee Trader by David Liss. A fascinating novel of the coffe trade circa the 17th century. Buy it through Amazon and Ann's Amazon link. Shakespeare was just a few years to early...http://www.amazon.com/Coffee-Trader-Novel-ebook/dp/B000FBFN0G